XML Sitemap Generator

This XML sitemap generator turns a list of URLs, a crawl export, or an existing sitemap into a clean, valid sitemap that Google and Bing can read. There’s no 500-page limit: paste or upload tens of thousands of URLs, and the generator removes duplicates and tracking parameters, leaves out pages that shouldn’t be indexed, splits large sites into several files with a sitemap index, and gives you the line to add to robots.txt. Everything runs in your browser, so your URL list never leaves your computer.

How to create an XML sitemap

• Add your URLs. Paste one URL per line, optionally followed by a last-modified date, or add CSV exports and existing sitemaps, including .xml.gz files.
• Check the sitemap address, such as https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml. The generator suggests one from your URLs.
• Review the checks. One click leaves out cart pages, search results, feeds, and other URLs that rarely belong in search results.
• Download the sitemap, upload it to your site, and submit it in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.

What is an XML sitemap?

An XML sitemap is a file that lists the pages on your site you want search engines to find, with optional details such as when each page last changed. It helps Google and Bing discover new and updated pages, especially on large sites, new sites with few links, and sites with pages that aren’t well linked. A sitemap is a hint, not a command: it doesn’t guarantee that a page is crawled or indexed, and it doesn’t improve rankings by itself.

XML sitemap example

A sitemap follows the format at sitemaps.org. Each page is a <url> entry with its address in <loc>:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://www.example.com/</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-09-30</lastmod>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://www.example.com/products/?color=red&amp;size=m</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-09-22T14:03:10+00:00</lastmod>
  </url>
</urlset>

Every URL must be complete, starting with https://, and the file must be UTF-8. Characters such as & have to be written as entities, and spaces and non-English characters have to be percent-encoded. The generator does all of this for you, which is where hand-made sitemaps most often break.

Build a sitemap from a crawl export

If you crawl your site with Screaming Frog or another crawler, export the HTML pages as CSV and paste or upload the file. The XML sitemap generator recognizes columns such as Address, Status Code, Indexability, Canonical Link Element 1, and Last Modified. It then keeps only the pages that belong in a sitemap: pages that return 200, are indexable, and are their own canonical. Redirects, errors, noindex pages, and canonicalised duplicates are left out, and each one is listed with its reason on the Left out tab, which you can download as a CSV.

The same works for Search Console page exports, CMS exports, and spreadsheets: any CSV with a column named URL, Address, or Page.

What to leave out of your sitemap

Google asks you to include the URLs you want to see in search results. Everything else makes the sitemap less useful as a signal. The checks flag these common problems and let you leave them out with one click:

• Redirected, broken, and noindex pages.
• Duplicate URLs, including versions with tracking parameters such as utm_source or gclid.
• URLs on another host or protocol, such as http:// pages in an https:// sitemap.
• Cart, checkout, account, and login pages.
• Internal search results, sorting and filter URLs, and feeds.
• Images, scripts, and other files listed as if they were pages.

You can also add your own patterns, such as /tag/ or /blog/*/amp/, to leave out or keep groups of URLs.

lastmod, changefreq, and priority

Tag	What search engines do with it	What the generator does
lastmod	Google and Bing use it when it’s accurate. Bing calls it a key signal.	Uses your dates, in a valid format, and skips dates that are unreadable or in the future.
changefreq	Ignored by Google and Bing.	Leaves it out unless you turn it on.
priority	Ignored by Google and Bing.	Leaves it out unless you turn it on.

A lastmod date should be when the page’s content last changed significantly, not the day you made the sitemap. Google says it uses lastmod only if it’s “consistently and verifiably accurate”, so the generator never fills in today’s date. If every URL has the same date, it warns you. Dates in other formats, such as 09/28/2026 or a server’s Last-Modified header, are converted to the W3C format sitemaps require.

Sitemap size limits and the sitemap index

One sitemap can hold up to 50,000 URLs and 50 MB uncompressed. Larger sites need several sitemaps and a sitemap index, a small file that lists them. The generator splits your URLs automatically, either at 50,000 per file or at a smaller number you choose, and checks the 50 MB limit as it goes. You then submit only the index.

Turn on gzip to make the files smaller to upload and download. Search engines read .xml.gz sitemaps directly. With several files, Download all (.zip) gives you every file at once.

Image sitemaps and hreflang

If your data includes image URLs, from an existing image sitemap or an Image column in your CSV, the generator adds them as image entries under each page, up to Google’s limit of 1,000 per page. Google now reads only the image’s address. Captions, titles, and licenses were removed from its image sitemap documentation in 2022, so they aren’t written.

hreflang alternates in a sitemap you paste are kept too. To create them from scratch for a multilingual site, use the hreflang Tag Generator, which writes them as a sitemap.

Where to put your sitemap and how to submit it

Upload the sitemap to the root of your site, such as https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml. A sitemap can only list URLs on its own host and inside its own folder, so one at /blog/sitemap.xml can’t include your product pages. The generator checks this for you.

• Google: submit the address in Search Console, under Indexing, then Sitemaps.
• Bing: submit it in Bing Webmaster Tools. Bing recommends also using IndexNow for fast updates.
• robots.txt: add the line from the robots.txt line tab, such as Sitemap: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml, so every search engine can find it.

Google retired its sitemap “ping” URL in 2023, so tools that promise to ping search engines no longer do anything. After uploading, test a few listed URLs in the robots.txt Tester to make sure they aren’t blocked from crawling.

XML sitemaps in WordPress

WordPress has built a basic sitemap at /wp-sitemap.xml since version 5.5. SEO plugins such as Yoast SEO and Rank Math replace it with their own, usually at /sitemap_index.xml. If one of these is working, you don’t need a separate file: submit the plugin’s sitemap and avoid uploading a second one that lists the same pages. This XML sitemap generator is most useful for sites without a sitemap, custom-built and static sites, migrations, and large sites where you want full control over which URLs are listed.

Check and clean an existing sitemap

Paste an existing sitemap, or add several .xml or .xml.gz files at once, to merge, clean, and validate them. The sitemap generator reports entries without a URL, duplicates, URLs outside the sitemap’s scope, and unreadable dates, then writes a clean copy. A sitemap index can’t be expanded automatically because the tool doesn’t fetch anything from the web, so open each sitemap it lists and paste or add those files.

Moving pages as well? Map the old URLs to the new ones with the htaccess Redirect Generator, then list only the new URLs in your sitemap. For AI agents, you can also summarize your key pages with the llms.txt Generator.